High winds and rain as Tropical Storm Cristobal nears US Gulf Coast

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Tropical Storm Cristobal lashed the northern Gulf Coast with high winds and drenching rain Sunday, heading toward a Louisiana landfall while swamping roads in Mississippi, prompting tornado watches in Alabama and spinning off a twister that uprooted trees in Florida.
Residents of waterside communities outside the New Orleans levee system — bounded by lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne — were urged to evacuate Sunday afternoon because of their vulnerability to an